Healing the Children National

When Lori Jo Embleton died, her adoptive parents, Gary and Cris Embleton of Spokane, WA, grieved not only for the tragedy of her death, but for the painful truth that Lori's life could have been saved with $5.00 worth of antibiotics had she received it soon after her birth. But that medicine was not available in her native country of South Korea. After Lori Jo's death in 1979, Cris learned of a child in Guatemala who would die without immediate treatment for a heart condition. The Embleton's put their grief to work and arranged for the child to have donated surgery at Children's Hospital in Seattle.

The procedure was a success and the Embleton's work gave birth to "Heal the Children" -- an organization that would provide hope for children from around the world who were in need of medical care unavailable to them in their home countries.

Heal the Children was incorporated in 1981. In 1985, HTC volunteers called a national conference in Connecticut to plan a structure for the organization. In the next year, a national office, separate from the original Spokane Chapter, was formed and a national board of directors named. In 1989, the name was changed to "Healing the Children."

Today HTC is comprised of 14 chapters throughout the USA and has provided first class medical treatment to tens of thousands of children from all over the globe.

Healing the Children Missouri Chapter

Healing the Children Missouri was founded in July, 2004 by Kathy Corbett. Having heard of the organization through a family member in Michigan, she and her family decided they would investigate becoming a host family. After discovering there was no HTC chapter in the Missouri area, Kathy began the journey to form HTC's Missouri Chapter, knowing St. Louis had the hospitals and heart to help children in need of medical care.

I had a few experiences which motivated me to begin an HTC chapter in the St. Louis area. First, my own son, if born in many developing countries, would have died from complex medical problems if not for the top-notch medical care available in the United States. In many countries, we would have been lucky to even get a diagnosis, much less the news that a surgeon could save his life through surgery. We were shocked by the entire experience; yet, so very thankful that our son received the medical care he required from a phenomenal surgeon and hospital.

On HTC's national website, I read about other parents with children who were suffering and dying because they happened to live in the wrong place where they could not access the medical treatment desperately needed for their children. During several trips to Haiti during my college years, I had seen first-hand the pain endured by children and their parents because a visit to a good physician or hospital was just not an option. I wondered back then how could I ever help ... and years later, HTC became the answer.

HTC and its volunteers feel a great responsibility to the children in the world with medically-treatable issues who just want to be kids ... to be healthy, to go to school, play with their friends, and to be free of pain. We hope to give them the same gift my son received ... the gift of new life and new hope for a healthy future.